Historical correspondence about the fate of the Orthodox Church

Contents Chapter I. On the current situation of the Orthodox Church (From the Chairman of the Committee of Ministers) Chapter II. Questions about desirable transformations in the formulation of our Orthodox Church Chapter III. Considerations of Secretary of State Pobedonostsev on questions of desirable transformations in the organization of our Orthodox Church Chapter IV. Regarding the considerations of Stas Secretary K.P. Pobedonostsev on questions about desirable changes in the organization of our Orthodox Church (From the Chairman of the Committee of Ministers) The question of the position of the Orthodox Church in Russia is one of the most fundamental and fundamental questions of the state and social structure of the Russians. The entire future of Russia, undoubtedly, is largely determined by the position that the Orthodox Church will occupy in the general structure of Russian life. It is quite natural that at the very first attempts to introduce a transformative principle in Russian life, in the initial period of the installation of a new regime, the question of the Church had to be put on the priority list. The transformative wave began with the historical Nominal Highest Decree “on plans for improving the state order.” This decree was issued on December 12, 1904. Its result was, first of all, the formation of a higher council, which included, by appointment of the Sovereign, the first dignitaries in the Empire, the entire Committee of Ministers, and the highest court officials. The meetings opened under the chairmanship of the then Chairman of the Committee of Ministers S. Yu. Witte. At its very first steps, this meeting, of course, could not help but touch upon the issue of the Orthodox Church. In practice, it approached this issue by considering the issue of religious tolerance. As is known, as a result of the work of the meeting in this direction, a decree on religious tolerance was issued on April 17, 1905, which still serves as the foundation for the current situation of heterodox churches and Old Believers in Russia. Theoretically, the meeting approached questions about the Orthodox Church through an interesting exchange of opinions between Metropolitan Anthony and the Chairman of the Committee of Ministers S. Yu. Witte, on the one hand, and between the Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod K.P. Pobedonostsev and the same S. Yu. Witte, on the other. Metropolitan Anthony, without making any objections to the manifesto of April 17 (as well as V.K. Sabler), pointed out that by giving a certain freedom to heterodox faiths and the Old Believers, this thereby gives them a privileged position in comparison with the position of the dominant Orthodox Church, and the Orthodox Church, he said, is in a position that interferes with its free development. As a result, it was decided to discuss at the same meeting what measures should be taken in relation to the Orthodox Church in order to give it the proper dominant and dominant position in Russia. As a result of this, a special preliminary correspondence took place between Metropolitan Anthony, K.P. Pobedonostsev and S.Yu. Witte. This correspondence was supposed to serve as material for further discussion. Metropolitan Anthony, at the suggestion of S.Yu. Witte, instructed the professors of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy under his leadership, the Metropolitan, to compile a list of questions “about desirable changes in the organization of our Orthodox Church.” Chairman of the meeting S.Yu. Witte expressed his opinion “on the current situation of the Orthodox Church” in a special brief note. This note and this list prompted a response from K.P. Pobedonostsev, which he set out in a special note entitled: “Considerations of Secretary of State Pobedonostsev on the issues of desirable transformations in the organization of our Orthodox Church.” This note, in turn, prompted a response from S.Yu. Witte, entitled: “Concerning the considerations of Secretary of State Pobedonostsev on questions of desirable changes in the organization of our Orthodox Church.” Due to the differences of opinion that occurred, the issue of the needs of the Orthodox Church and the desired transformations in it was not discussed in the above-mentioned supreme meeting and, at the request of K.P. Pobedonostsev was submitted for discussion to the Holy Synod, where this issue remains without movement to this day... In view of the fact that the note by the Chairman of the Committee of Ministers S.Yu. Witte officially raised the question of the Orthodox Church and its needs and, above all, of the local council, and in view of the special position of the persons who exchanged opinions on such pressing issues, all this correspondence is, of course, of enormous historical interest. This correspondence could not remain absolutely secret, because it was sent to all members of the Committee. At the present time, when the question of the disorganization of the Orthodox Church is again on the agenda, the publication of this correspondence is, as it seems to us, quite modern. Authoritative opinion on the mentioned issues of Metropolitan Anthony, K.P. Pobedonostsev and S.Yu. Witte should be listened to with attention now. Chapter I. On the current situation of the Orthodox Church (From the Chairman of the Committee of Ministers) After a two-century policy of religious restrictions, Russia is now embarking on the path of widespread religious tolerance. This is prompted both by the awareness of the inconsistency of religious restrictions with the spirit of the Orthodox Church, and by their uselessness, tested by long experience. Both official reports, and especially private communications from persons close to the missionary work, convince us that oppression contributes to the strengthening of sectarianism, and not to its weakening. But if the question of religious freedom can be considered resolved in a positive sense, then now it is quite timely to clarify the situation in which the Orthodox Church itself will be affected under the changed conditions: will it be able to withstand the upcoming struggle against sectarianism and other faiths in general? In spiritual literature, very alarming voices are heard on this matter. “To now declare freedom of conscience for everyone would mean freeing everyone’s hands, but leaving the leaders of the Church tied.” Almost all modern theological literature agrees with this opinion of Bishop Sergius (rector of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy). Obviously, even with complete external freedom and even protection from the state, the internal life of the Orthodox Russian Church is entangled by some heavy chains that also need to be removed; their traces are indeed noticeable in modern religious life. Both the spiritual and secular press equally note the general lethargy of internal church life: the alienation of the parish and especially the educated strata of society from their spiritual leaders; the absence of a living preaching word, the general weakness of the pastoral activity of the clergy, which in most cases is limited only to the performance of divine services and the correction of demands; the complete decline of the church parish community with its educational and charitable institutions; the dryness and formality of diocesan, “consistory” paperwork and the narrow bureaucratic nature of the activities of the institutions grouped around the Synod. It was from Dostoevsky that we heard for the first time the menacing word: “The Russian Church is in paralysis; then it did not meet with serious objections. Both Dostoevsky and his many later like-minded people point out the reason for the decline of church life in some features of the reform of church government carried out by Peter the Great and in the way of local life that began to develop from that time. From the beginning of the 18th century, the conciliar principle began to weaken in church life, and then completely disappeared; This is what primarily caused the stagnation of church life. The religious principle is primarily a social principle; it develops and strengthens where social life is given some freedom. Naturally, therefore, “conciliarity” was the main principle of church life and the main principle of church governance. From the Christian communities of the apostolic times, with their elders and brethren, and to the Byzantine patriarchs with the court staff of ranks surrounding them, the beginning of conciliar government was continuously maintained in the church canon. The bodies of council governance were ecumenical and local councils. The first were exceptional phenomena, caused by special circumstances, and, of course, could not be repeated often. But local councils, on the basis of the apostolic canons (20 and 37) and the canons of the ecumenical councils (I, 5; IV, 10; VII, 8; VIII, 6), which received the force of immutable canonical law, had to meet twice or at least once a year. All the bishops of the local church appeared or sent their representatives to local councils. Diocesan administration was also based on the principle of conciliarity. Under the bishop there was a council of presbyters; often the entire church community participated in these meetings; Such was the public, social and deliberative nature of the church administration of the apostolic times and in general of the first centuries of Christianity, when the church community, which had a separate bishop, did not represent a large number; with the further development of church life, the presence of all members of the community remained only at parish meetings, and at the bishop's council it was gradually replaced by their representation. The patriarchate, which was considered by the Spiritual Regulations as an obstacle to the conciliar government of the Church, did not at all violate the principle of conciliarity - the patriarch was far from being the sole ruler of the Church, but only the chairman of the permanent council that existed near him; it was unthinkable without the cathedral; This is the usual canonical order, rare deviations from which have always been accompanied by a decline in church life. The Synod established by the Transformer of Russia bears only external, by no means canonical, features of conciliarity. In it, the conciliar principle is replaced by collegiality. The essence of the conciliar principle is not that the board is headed by not one, but several persons, but that each of these persons is a representative of the entire community. Collegiality is only a system of internal bureaucratic organization. In our synodal administration there is no representation from each diocese, no representation at all, since the members of the Synod are appointed by the government; it represents “not a church government, but a state bureaucratic institution” 1 . “The Permanent Synod,” says Professor Zaozersky, “whatever form it may have, is, in any case, only the executive body of an entire local council. – This, of course, is quite applicable to the Russian Synod. But in Russia, the local council not only does not meet annually, but has not met even once for two hundred years. Therefore, the entire system of our church government seems to have no canonical basis. Orthodox canonists admit that when establishing the Synod, Peter the Great did not act according to the model of the canons obligatory for the Orthodox Church, but “under the strong influence of Protestant canonical systems, which he became acquainted with in Holland and Sweden” (Pavlov, Suvorov, etc.). In the diocesan administration, in replacement of the ancient council of presbyters, so-called “consistories” were established, representing bureaucratic collegiums, with four to five members from the clergy, appointed by the Synod at the choice of the bishop, and with a secular official leader. Thus, there is no trace left of the representation of individual parish societies at the episcopal council. Even if a consistory could be called a cathedral, then, in any case, it would be a headless cathedral, for it never sees a bishop in its circle, but communicates with the latter through clerical correspondence or through a secular person - the secretary of the consistory. The expulsion of the principle of conciliarity of governance from church life led to a change in the very spirit of church life. Already in the first years, the activities of the Synod took on an external, bureaucratic - police character - to look for various abuses, to eradicate superstition and free-thinking in various forms. The Synod's instructions to the bishops consisted primarily of the same instructions on the means of search and extermination, and sometimes even secret tracking and questioning were recommended. All spiritual responsibilities of members of the Orthodox Church were strictly regulated and outlined in articles and paragraphs corresponding to the current “Charter on the Prevention and Suppression of Crimes.” Here every slightest religious manifestation of the spirit was provided for and conditioned, and it was prescribed in detail how to behave in churches and maintain decency and silence in them, how to stand in front of icons, celebrate holidays, go to confession and monitor the firmness of the Orthodox faith. These attempts at police regulation of objects and phenomena of spiritual life that did not lend themselves to it undoubtedly introduced a deadening spirit of dry bureaucracy into the church sphere. The main goal of the church reform of Peter I was to reduce the Church to the level of a simple state institution pursuing exclusively state goals. And indeed, church government soon became just one of the many wheels of a complex state machine. Subsequently, the “department of the Orthodox confession” was correctly organized on the model of the other ministries, with the chief prosecutor at the head, who became the representative of the Church before the Sovereign and in the highest state institutions (the State Council, the Committee of Ministers). At present our church administration is of a closed, clerical nature; the hierarchy communicates with the people through papers, rarely entering into direct live communication with them. Moreover, the secular bureaucratic element stands as a constant barrier between the Church and the people, and the Church and the Sovereign. There is no need to talk about church initiative, self-initiation, or even mutual living communication among the hierarchy. Lively social life has been replaced by paper here too. The only way to awaken a frozen life can only be a return to the previous canonical forms of church government. The unfavorable turn that took place in the life of the Russian Church in the 18th century was perhaps most clearly reflected in the decline of the parish - this main unit of church life. This turn is all the more noticeable because the church and social life of the ancient Russian parish was distinguished by great revival. The Russian parish used to represent a living and active unit. The community itself built its own church, elected a priest and the rest of the church clergy. The church treasury then had a broader purpose; it supported and maintained not only the church and houses for the clergy, but also a school with a teacher and a number of charitable institutions; sometimes it played the role of a peasant bank and was distributed to the poor. The parish community itself judged its fellow members and had the right to the widest possible intervention even in their internal family life, monitoring the moral actions of each member. From this living and active community only one name remains today. The decline in the life of the parish was caused by complex reasons, many of which continue to exert their oppressive influence to this day; The main ones must be recognized as the development of serfdom, which undermined the independence of community life, and the rapid forward movement of state centralization, which increasingly eliminated local elements from participation in government. There was a time when overly zealous police officers persecuted everything that bore any shadow of a community. The “fraternal” court was then considered arbitrariness, and “fraternal” gatherings were considered dangerous meetings. These general reasons were supplemented by very specific requirements that the government began to apply to the parish clergy. Looking at the Church only as an integral part of the state mechanism, the Converter of Russia decided to involve its servants in the performance of purely state duties and, to the great misfortune of the parish clergy, entrusted its flock with a police-detective task completely unusual for the clergy: the priest had to monitor the correct indication of the number of tax-paying souls and, in addition, strictly report all the actions revealed to him in confession that tended to harm states. Having turned from a spiritual leader into an agent of police surveillance, the shepherd lost all trust of his flock and moral connection with them. Other circumstances also contributed to this. With the decline in the independence of the parish community, the financial situation of the clergy deteriorated greatly; Previously, the community itself collected a known, predetermined amount for the maintenance of the clergy; with the fall of the communal parish economy, the clergy found themselves completely left to their own devices and had to feed themselves by cultivating, along with the peasants, those small pieces of land that were given by the landowners to the churches, and by paying penny fees from parishioners for services; The orphaned family of the priest was left completely without a piece of bread and could live only on alms from the parishioners. This financial situation of the parish clergy caused many dark phenomena in church life. The difficult situation of orphans prompted the spiritual authorities to allow a very unique method of charity in practice - the hereditary transfer of priestly places to the son or husband of the daughter of a deceased member of the clergy. Maintained for a long time, this order of replacing priestly places, preventing the influx of new forces from outside into the clergy, laid the foundation for its caste isolation, which now makes such an unfavorable impression on society. The closed caste character of the clergy is an unprecedented phenomenon in ancient church life, where members of the clergy were elected from the community without any difference in their rank or status. In the second half of the last century, especially in its last decade, thanks to the concerns of the government, the financial situation of the clergy began to improve. But a side is still 15 - 20 rubles. a monthly salary and insignificant income from church land do not provide the priest with even his daily bread and force him to impose a number of mandatory fees on the parish when performing sacraments and correcting demands. This necessity sadly affects the mutual relations between the pastor and the flock. In the soul of a priest, financial accounts at the most inopportune moment instill a feeling of pastoral impotence; this forced trade in the shrine deprives him of all support for activity; parishioners, who are not always able to understand the degree of material need of their pastor, such extortions give reason to classify the priest among the kulaks and world-eaters. Under such conditions of provision, it is difficult for the clergy to rise above simple correction of demands, as a craft, and to become a real shepherd of the people, and for the church community to rally around him as the center; between one side and the other there will always be some kind of wall. The first condition for enhancing pastoral activity should be to find ways to provide for the clergy so that the priest is freed from the need to bargain with the parishioner before performing the sacraments. In this case, one must keep in mind not just an increase in funds for the maintenance of the clergy from the treasury, the rapid growth of which may not be allowed by the state of the state treasury, but such an organization of zemstvo taxation in favor of the clergy, through which they would receive from the parish the same funds as now, without the need to personally extort them from each parishioner in particular. This is most conveniently accomplished when the freedom of self-government of the church community is restored. To revitalize parish life, the church community needs to return the right to participate in the church economy and the right to choose, or at least participate in the selection of clergy members, that was taken from it. In the first centuries of Christianity, not only elders, but even bishops, were elected by the local community. This right of election had great moral significance - a bishop or presbyter entered his community as a desired person and as a leader, and not as an unknown stranger, driven here not always even by his own will, but only by the mercy or anger of the higher authorities. At present, the question of replacing episcopal sees seems to be so firmly established that there is no longer even a trace left of the community’s right to elect its own archpastor; but the question of the elective beginning of the white clergy was raised more than once. Given the current composition of the rural parish community, in which elements of the peasantry who are poorly informed in religious terms predominate, it may be untimely to talk about the choice of a priest by the parish; but a group of parish representatives led by elders would be a completely competent body for this. Traces of the elective principle still remain in the form of dead archaeological remains in our worship - such as, for example, the singing of "axios" at the initiation of a priest or deacon; It would seem very timely to resurrect this ancient principle, which so strongly supported the inner life of the church community. But to implement it, it is not enough to reorganize only the parish community. The revival of a parish will not achieve any beneficial significance for the entire local church if the matter is limited only to the restoration of the autonomous existence of small church units. These units must be connected with each other by spiritual communication, must merge into a vast diocesan society with a central point - the diocesan bishop. In parallel with the parish meeting, a “diocesan meeting” should be periodically formed, using the local cathedral as a model for its organization (Prof. Zaozersky). Thus, this partial reform will not achieve its goal without a general reform of the highest church administration. A necessary condition for the normal course of the internal life of the Church is the complete unity of believers among themselves. The believers of the first Christian community had, in the words of the apostle, “one heart and one mouth”; Later Christian communities were also closely knit unions of love and brotherhood. Our Orthodox Church is currently deprived of such unity, which is why different sects are growing so abundantly on its soil and religious indifference is breeding. In addition to the general disconnect between the clergy and the parish, the reasons for which are noted above, very serious concerns are caused by the unfriendly attitude towards the Church of a significant part of our intelligentsia and the general spiritual discord between the latter and the people. Only the Church can smooth out this destructive spiritual schism in our inner life. But for this, the clergy must first of all restore its influence on the educated strata of society. As recent years have shown, when educated society has shown significant interest in religious issues, the reason for its alienation from the Church cannot be seen in religious indifferentism and the pagan character of our secular culture alone. The reasons seem to be rooted deeper - in the very structure of church life, frozen, divorced from the interests that concern society. But, in any case, we are faced with the sad fact that the clergy turned out to be powerless to reconcile a significant part of educated society with the Church and subordinate to its influence, that it is not sufficiently prepared to combat the mental and moral currents of modern culture unfavorable to the Church. A significant share of the blame for this falls, according to the fully competent organs of the spiritual press, on our theological school. The theological school deals very little with modern trends of social thought. Anything that introduces modern negative cultural trends is carefully excluded from student libraries. But doesn’t hiding literature that has a negative attitude towards religion and the state from a future priest simply mean disarming him? In the role of a priest - the official defender of the religious ideal - he will inevitably have to face representatives of the latest negative movements, and is it surprising that the priest, in spite of the temptation of everyone around him, will be powerless to say a strong word against them. Given the real demands of social life, a priest needs a detailed critical acquaintance with all modern trends of cultural thought. In particular, it is necessary to have a thorough acquaintance with the conditions of social life and with the social sciences, which theological school does not provide at all. Our clergy believes in the superiority of our state system over the forms of Western European social life, but only with childish faith, and therefore, when circumstances force them to speak out on one or another social issue, to stand up for one or another state task, the latter turns out to be so inept and sometimes even naive that instead of the desired result it produces only a negative effect tending to harm the state; for inept defense of a principle is the best way to bring it down in the eyes of society. The state needs from the clergy a conscious, deeply thought-out defense of its interests, and not a naive belief in the modern situation. “Our theological school is entirely focused on history, on the past, it is too theoretical, divorced from life, and as long as it remains like this, all projects for the revival of parish life will have little success” 2 since, in the end, the central person in the parish, its inspirer and leader, will always be a priest, whom the church school prepares for public activity. The issue of a theological school is not a matter for a separate department, it is a matter that closely concerns the entire state, for the degree of religious influence on the people depends entirely on its formulation. And if now the theological school appears to be narrowly class-based, almost inaccessible to outside secular elements, then this order of things brings significant harm to the state. If anything else, then it is religious education that should be available to everyone, regardless of differences in class and age. Dwelling with sadness on the modern decline of internal religious life, spiritual literature has more than once noted undesirable violent changes introduced into church life without any information about the attitude of the church consciousness towards them. The entire 18th century and the beginning of the 19th were predominantly a time of such oppression; then church life itself began to fit into the indicated pattern; Thus, on the basis of church administration impersonalized by bureaucracy, a dry, scholastic school, divorced from life, was created by itself. The policy of violence against church consciousness, while perhaps bringing some state benefit in the near future, later resulted in terrible harm - the decline of church life that we now have to reckon with. In this respect, it is very reminiscent of the ancient economy of our landowners, who tried to extract from the land everything that could be taken from it at the moment, and thereby doomed their sons to hunger and want. For there is no such rich land that would not be depleted by continuous, merciless development. It seems that after two centuries of too intensive state economy on church soil, the latter has finally become exhausted. The Church needs an alliance with the state; The state also needs the support of the Church, but the conditions of the union between one and the other side must be drawn up in such a way as not to weaken the initiative of either the church or the state body. The reform of Peter the Great radically upset this balance. Representatives of the Russian hierarchy more than once tried to protest against the new order of things, in the form, for example, of a request to Empress Elizabeth to abolish secular officials in the Synod or notes (by Metropolitan Philaret) on the need to convene a local council, but the secular authority of the department of Orthodox confession made every effort to preserve the established order of things. At the present time of popular disorder, when the living, active influence of church forces on the people is especially dear, the question of the need for church reform is discussed in the spiritual press with particular animation. “Now,” they say, “the time has come for a detailed examination of all the defects of our church life and the institutions that govern it. The more broadly the task of revision is set, the sooner improvements and changes are introduced, the more confidence there will be that the Church will endure this test and emerge from it full of fresh strength to continue its holy work.” “But reform,” notes the spiritual press, “should not be the work of officials and not the work of those sitting in the Synod or even a somewhat large number of bishops, but a free work of the entire Russian Church.” Moreover, all the spiritual bodies speaking out on this issue point to the need to convene a local council. But in order for this council to truly represent the voice of the entire Russian Church, it cannot be a closed college of bishops, which is a non-canonical phenomenon. Both ecumenical and local councils were not colleges of hierarchs - bishops, but a collection of all the best forces of the Church - both clergy and laity; (Zaozersky); Presbyters, deacons, and ordinary laity were present and took an active part in them. Every voice must be heard at the council; Only under such conditions can one of the main goals of the council be achieved - sufficient awareness of the needs of modern spiritual life. The permanent council, which currently exists under the Constantine-Polish Patriarch, includes, in addition to clergy, representatives of the Greek people elected by the people's assembly. And the Russian Synod initially included, in addition to bishops, representatives of the white clergy, and only over time did it turn into a closed college of bishops, which was a further deviation from the canonical soil. For more than two hundred years we have not heard the voice of the Russian Church... Isn’t it time to finally listen to it; Isn’t it time to find out what she will say about the modern way of church life, which has taken place against her will and contrary to the traditions of sacred antiquity bequeathed to her? At a local council, where it will be necessary to organize representation, both from the white clergy and from the laity, the question of those necessary changes in the structure of church life that would enable the Church to rise to the proper height and receive the necessary freedom of action should be considered. Given these undeniable signs of some internal vacillation in both society and the masses, it is dangerous to wait any longer. Religion constitutes the main basis of the national spirit; the Russian land has stood and been strong until now; only with the help of this force can the Russian people emerge from these difficult times of trials. And there can be no greater harm to the state than to hinder the development and free manifestation of this popular power, trying to put it within the framework of dry bureaucratic principles, as is being done now. Chapter II. Questions about desirable transformations in our Orthodox Church 1) The judgments of the Committee of Ministers on the issue of religious tolerance reveal to those who separated from the Orthodox Church (Old Believers, sectarians, etc.) a certain state position, with certain rights and benefits, and at the same time do not concern their internal, in the proper sense, church life. Questions, for example, about marriage and divorce, about the church trial of clergy and secular persons, about the organization of community-parish life and charity, about the appointment and methods of choosing higher and lower clergy, etc. - all this will remain outside the intervention of state, secular authorities (as long as it does not go, of course, beyond the limits of permission for a Russian subject in general). Such autonomy in its church affairs puts the said society in some respects in a more favorable position than that in which the Orthodox Church, now recognized as the dominant one in the state, is, and, by giving the clergy of these societies special, exclusive authority in church affairs, it opens up for the clergy the possibility of broad influence on the entire life, both family and social, of their flock. This, together with the possibility of autonomous organization, will create from these societies a force that is very impressive and for many more attractive than the Orthodox Church, which is constrained in its purely ecclesiastical activities. This must be said especially about the community that “accepts the Austrian priesthood”: it has all the appearance of the Orthodox Church. There may be a danger that this community will turn into a people's Church, while the Orthodox Church will remain only a state Church. In view of this, and also in view of the fact that the Orthodox Church constitutes one of the main foundations of the Russian state order and one of its historical foundations, is it not essential from the point of view of the state to reconsider the current state position of the Orthodox Church in Russia so that, even with the changed state position of those who have fallen away from it, it is not deprived of its authority among the people and not deprived of its influence on the latter? 2) Since one of the greatest advantages of non-Orthodox societies is now their autonomy in internal church affairs, then, in order to paralyze this advantage, is it not timely to eliminate or at least somewhat weaken that constant guardianship and that too vigilant control of secular authorities over the life of the church and over the activities of the church government which deprives the Church of independence and initiative and, limiting the area of its jurisdiction to almost only divine services and the correction of services, makes its voice completely inaudible, either in private or in public life? 3) Shouldn’t it therefore be given to the Orthodox Church greater freedom in managing its internal affairs, where it could be guided mainly by church canons and the moral and religious needs of its members and, freed from a direct state or political mission, could, with its revived moral authority, be an indispensable support of the Orthodox state? 4) Mentors and other clergy of non-Orthodox communities, being proteges of these latter, must have special authority for them and, under all circumstances, not only of purely church life, but also of public life, will turn out to be natural representatives of their communities and intercessors for them before the government. The Imperial Decree of June 26, 1904 also desires the same direct participation in the public life of the parish from the Orthodox clergy. Therefore, shouldn’t it be possible to extend to Orthodox priests the right to be indispensable members of public and state institutions that take place in their parishes (in the event of the restoration of the parish as a zemstvo unit), to participate in a secular gathering and to be representatives of the community before the authorities, if the latter so desires? 5) In order for the voice of the Church to be more heard in state administration (which fundamentally calls upon itself the blessing of the Church), and also so that state dignitaries can directly know from authorized representatives of the Church its views on this or that subject, and representatives of the Church can directly explain church affairs to state dignitaries and intercede about the needs and requirements of the Church, would it not be considered desirable to now provide the highest representatives of the Church hierarchy (several of them, by rank or by choice) Church) participation with voting rights in meetings of the State Council, the Committee of Ministers and similar higher state legislative institutions? 6) For the development of parish charity and, in general, for the revitalization of the parish and the proper organization of parish life, it would be very important to recognize the parish as a legal entity with ownership rights, which would give the parish organization stability and material resources. On the other hand, the Orthodox Church, in relation to the issue of acquiring property, will in the future find itself in perhaps a worse position than the communities that separated from it: all property, even if denied to the church by will, is now assigned to church institutions only by the Supreme Will. Therefore, wouldn’t it be considered possible now to revise the laws on the Church’s right to property, its acquisition and use? 7) The revival and revitalization of the parish, from which beneficial consequences are rightly expected for national and state life in general, is possible only under the condition of decentralization of church administration, when the initiative in many matters, as well as their final completion, will be transferred from the center to the regions and dioceses. But such decentralization, together with the above-mentioned change in the state position of the Orthodox Church, naturally presupposes and entails many changes in the structure of church government, both central and diocesan, and in the mutual relations of both. All this leads to the idea of ​​the need to revise the church system. On the other hand, and independently of this, there is an urgent need, and has long been recognized in the literature, for a revision of certain aspects of church government, for example, especially the church court, the rights and powers of diocesan congresses, the participation of the laity in them as representatives of parishes, and much more. Although all these issues are closely related to national interests and legislation, they can only be resolved competently and finally only in a church conference. Therefore, is it now untimely to present to His Imperial Majesty the urgent need to form a special meeting of representatives of the church hierarchy, with the participation of knowledgeable persons from the clergy and laity, to review the existing church administration and to develop a project for the necessary transformations in it? Books dealing with the fundamental solution to the issue of transforming church government as a whole: Tikhomirov, L. Requests of life and our church governance. Ivantsov-Platonov. Letters on Our Church Government Barsov. Synod in its past. (Here is printed, by the way, a project for reforms of Russian church administration, submitted by the Most Reverend Agaoangel, Bishop of Vyatka, etc.) Zaozersky. On the means of strengthening the power of the highest church administration. Blagovidov. Chief Prosecutors of the Holy Synod. The canonical dignity of Peter's reform is “Theologian. Vestn.”, 1904. Chapter III. State Secretary Pobedonostsev's thoughts on the desired changes in the organization of our Orthodox Church Until now, the inextricable connection between the state and the Church in Russia was considered the main support of the state and the Church, and the disintegration of this connection was considered disastrous for both the Church and the state. A note sent out to Messrs. members of the Committee of Ministers, is tending, apparently, under the pretext of liberating the Church, to significantly weaken this connection, with its results threatening the Church and the state with great danger. The compiler of this note, apparently, is little familiar with history, and with the current state of church government, and with the material, moral and social conditions in the midst of which church life takes place. The ideal of church structure and church life seems to him to be the state of the Church in the centuries preceding the reform of Peter, and especially in the 17th century during the existence of the patriarchate. He cites some sources from which, apparently, he drew his judgments, but one can hardly consider the articles of theological journals and books of some idealists and ideologists who were unfamiliar with reality and dreamed of reviving our Church, returning it to the order of pre-Petrine times, to be serious for such an important matter. Serious sources for this would be solid works on the history of the state and the Church, which are inextricably linked with it, for example, the works of Golubinsky, Makariy, Solovyov, etc. The study of such sources would show the compiler of this note all the unfoundedness of his judgments. He would have seen the deadness of church administration and church life, the ignorance of pastors and flocks, abuses, superstitious customs and violence that the councils, starting with Stoglav, denounce together with the tsar. He would have seen, during the period of the patriarchate, how the deadness of ritual formalism was filled with church life and church government, and, perhaps, he would have been convinced that church reform was necessary. The patriarchate was established in Russia not for the sake of internal need, but for the sake of the political dream that arose in Moscow to establish the order of Byzantine higher church government in Rus'; they wanted to have, as the acts say, a new Constantine for the church, and they wanted to see Moscow as the third Rome. But these aspirations, like impulses of feeling, were crushed by the demands of reason and the pressure of the force of things. In order for our patriarch to compare with that of Constantinople, it would be necessary for him to establish a hierarchical structure under him on the Greek model. But in Greece the diocese is small, and the bishop can do everything himself; and such closeness to our flock is impossible given the vastness of our dioceses. With the establishment of the patriarchate, only in the rank of bishops did “disagreements and dissension and high-mindedness among themselves, disorder in the Church and rumors and reproaches from the people” arose, which was testified at the council in 1681, in agreement by the assembled metropolitans and archbishops, and Tsar Theodore was beaten with his forehead about the elevation of the episcopal rank, which had been degraded by the patriarchal authority, and about episcopal freedom activities. The Patriarch, little by little, became the position of a kind of feudal owner of the entire Church and reached the point that under Nikon he began to be called the Sovereign Father and began to place his power autocratically alongside the royal power. Thus, even before Peter’s accession, demands for reform arose from among the clergy themselves, to which Peter gave a definite, legal and mandatory form in the Spiritual Regulations. There was no significant change in the structure of the church life of the dioceses, but the power and honor of the bishop was still elevated, and the reasons for “discord, strife and superiority” among the bishop’s rank were destroyed, as everyone wanted. Events at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th centuries showed that patriarchal rule is dangerous for the state, and therefore, for the purpose of self-defense, the state had no choice but to destroy the patriarchal rule and replace it with conciliar rule; but it was impossible to gather in Russia, given its vastness and confusion, although once a year, as required by the canons, and therefore there was a need to establish a permanent council, in the form of the Holy Synod. With the death of Peter, the head of the new institutions was no longer there. Everything changed, and the 18th century was indeed a time of enslavement and oppression for the Church. But not through the fault of the new institution, but because Russia began to be ruled by Germans alien to Russia and the Russian faith and because of general ignorance in the affairs of the Church and faith. This same ignorance was also the reason that during the reign of Paul I, in an official state act, the Emperor was named the head of the Church - a name that, however, did not receive official meaning and actual force. But then in the 19th century, with the gradual softening of morals and the expansion of rights, nothing any longer prevented the Church, protected by the state, from strengthening and expanding its spiritual influence among the people and in society, and an attentive and impartial researcher of the facts of church life must admit that over time and with the spread of culture in society, the activity of the Church not only did not decline compared to previous times, but received significant development and new means and methods for moral influence on the flock. Nowadays, the guardian of the Church in his note complains that the educational and spiritually edifying activities of the Church are constrained in comparison with those of other faiths, in their autonomy, by the tutelage of the state and the control of secular authorities over the life of the Church. What exactly these constraints are, the note will not give definitive indications, limiting itself to general phrases, and from these constraints the decline of church life supposedly occurs. Among the arguments, a phrase taken from Dostoevsky’s works is cited: “the Russian Church is in paralysis,” but when interpreting this phrase, it would be necessary to explain - if this paralysis exists, then how long ago did it begin and from what to occur - from the inaction of one’s own forces or from the influence of an alien force. Freedom of conscience is declared for everyone, the note says, but Church leaders remain “bound,” as if in some way “freedom of conscience” is being diminished or violated in their activities. And this phrase remains unexplained without definitive indications of the facts. The author of the note would apparently like to eliminate from church life any participation of people of secular rank, i.e. officials who are representatives and instruments of state care for the Church, i.e. in essence, accomplices of the Church, ministers to the same extent of both the Church and the state. The Church, he says, must be freed from state or political activities. But such isolation from state interests is impossible anywhere, and even less so in Russia, where the main concern of state power is the education and upbringing of the people in the spirit of faith and morality, moreover, church issues, especially in relation to the East, are now acquiring international political significance, therefore, cannot be alien to the state. In the conditions in which the Russian Church must operate, on a vast territory, in uninhabited desert spaces, in the midst of a diverse and uncultured population, in the midst of national poverty, it would be destitute without help from the state, and everyone knows how abundantly the Church has recently been supplied with monetary benefits from the state for the maintenance of the clergy and religious educational institutions, for pensions, for parochial schools, land plots from state lands and etc. But all these benefits already make it necessary for church administration to comply with the laws and procedures of various government departments, with the rules of control and to enter into constant and continuous relations with the departments of all ministries without exception, and this requires special knowledge of various laws and research on individual emerging issues and, in any case, a variety of complex correspondence. Church administration, undoubtedly, is obliged to obey general state laws, and therefore needs special knowledge and the assistance of specialists of various kinds, engineers, architects, etc. How could the church authorities do without the assistance of officials who carry out all this enormous work; and if the Church believes its autonomy in eliminating such assistance, then, using a mass of clergy for this, it would only distract them from the direct spiritual service of the Church and would not receive the assistance (special workers) that it has now. In what way, one might ask, do these officials constrain the activities of clergy, if we do not consider the opinions of knowledgeable persons about what can be done and demanded by law and what cannot be done and demanded as constraint? The note indicates the removal from church life of the basic principle of conciliarity, as the main principle of church governance. But where is the constraint on the part of the state? It is shown above why the canonical rule of the ancient Byzantine Church to gather at least once a year turned out to be inapplicable to Russia due to its vastness, the vastness of the dioceses and the difficulty of communications. True, in the first half of the 19th century there was a ban on bishops meeting, but there has been no mention of it for a long time, and in the last 25 years, by order of the Synod, councils of local churches were repeatedly organized, namely in Kazan, Kyiv and Irkutsk. The establishment of spiritual consistories, which serve as a “bureaucratic replacement for the ancient council of presbyters,” is apparently considered a constraint. But this establishment was necessarily caused by the same extreme complication of correspondence on the affairs of the same church administration in its contact with the affairs of general civil administration, and the workers of this correspondence, of necessity, were officials and secular people - and this correspondence, multiplying, reaches in other consistories up to 20,000 outgoing papers a year. How can we manage without it? It is true that the consistory has become a public place and is replete with the shortcomings of the formal production of all public places. But a secular person - the secretary of the consistory - occupies an official position under the bishop. It largely depends on the bishop to breathe life through his personal attitude and participation in the meeting of presbyters, who are members of consistories and usually come there only to sign protocols, which are then presented to the bishop. They say; “living social life has been replaced by paper.” But how can it be arranged when the physical conditions of life make it difficult for the hierarchy to communicate directly with the people? However, in this regard, it also depends on the personal activity of the bishop and the clergy - not to forget the person on paper and to have, to the extent possible, lively communication with the flock. What does this have to do with constraint from state power? The note complains about the decline of the parish in comparison with what happened in the 16th and 17th centuries, when the parish represented a living, amateur unit - and here it places the blame on Peter's reform and on the constraining intervention of state power. But the author forgets that we can no longer return from the new world and from the many changed and complicated relationships and interests in Rus' of the 16th and 17th centuries. Since then, the composition of the parish has completely changed, and what was previously simple has become confused, diverse and discordant. Where there was simply agreement between the gathering and the world, there appeared division and conflict of interests and lusts. Previously, they say, the community itself elected a priest, and this matter was simple, because the very title of the priest, in many cases illiterate, repeated church services from memory to perform the services. And this matter has become more complicated since priests with qualifications began to be required, i.e. with completion of a school course. Therefore, even now, although the right to choose is not eliminated, the election belongs to the bishop, and petitions in hand require verification, because they are often drawn up by simply selecting signatures for a request in personal interest. “The community built its own church.” But now, in comparison with the 16th and 17th centuries, a huge number of churches were again required, the construction of which was no longer sufficient for the strength of the poor parish communities. And now churches of God are being built all over the face of the earth with the people’s penny and generous donations from private individuals - zealots of the Church; but, mainly, the need, which is also essential for the state, is satisfied by state care. With considerable funds allocated from the state, new parishes are opened and churches are built where the poor population needs them. Moreover, historical research shows that not all church communities had the ideal type of independence that their note shows. Many churches were maintained under patronage rights. Cathedral churches throughout Russia, numbering up to 1,500, were considered royal and had the Tsar as their ktitor, were maintained at the expense of the Tsar, and their clergy were fed from the Tsar’s rupee. The churches of Pskov and Novgorod initially depended on the veche as a patron, and after the destruction of the veche they were considered either before the voivode or before the zemstvo izba. The votchinnik's right of patronage was applied to churches built by votchinniki and landowners, and at the choice of members of the clergy and the church economy, and the owners themselves were in charge. Peasants living on volost and state lands and townspeople built churches, called priests to join them, armed them and elected an elder. Finally, in 1667, the Greek patriarchs, summoned to Moscow by the Tsar, at a council denounced the phenomenon, which they called anti-canonical absurdity and crookedness of the churches, i.e. the existence of churches owned by priests on patrimonial and patronage rights, with transfer by inheritance, by will and by sale. It is in vain that the note seems to place the blame on the state for the ruin of an independent parish unit. The actual facts of history show the opposite, and the first concern for the restoration of the parish belongs to no one else, but to the state, namely in the person of Peter, who was condemned by the note. Upon his accession to the throne, he forbade the bishops to manage church funds and instructed them to monitor the integrity of the parish treasury and supply the church elders with laced income and expenditure books, and in 1718 (Poli. Collected Zak, No. 3171 and 5) issued a decree on protecting the integrity of the parish community, so that church management would be managed by parishioners through elected prefects In 1764, there followed an act of liberation of the parish clergy from tax dependence on the bishop, and parishioners from duties in favor of the church authorities. Published in 1808 The instruction to church wardens put an end to the arbitrary disposal of church incomes by landowners, especially Poles, in serf parishes, and to this day the state authorities continue to care about the gradual development of parish independence, which is what the establishment of church trustees and the establishment of parochial schools strive for. The note indicates the closed caste character of the clergy - a phenomenon, so to speak, unprecedented in ancient church life. It is shown above that the previous position of the parish community in the 16th and 17th centuries cannot be compared with its position during the more complex social relations in later times, when literate priests with a certain education were required. The increase in new needs and the multiplication of new paths for a career have reduced the number of people willing to devote themselves to pastoral service, which in most parishes is associated with poverty and extreme need, and we have parishes stretching hundreds of miles in circumference. The number of people willing to dedicate themselves to serving the Church by vocation has always been almost insignificant, and even St. Dmitry of Rostov mourned that they were looking for priestly places “not for the sake of Jesus, but for the sake of a piece of bread,” and remained in ignorance and superstition. It is not difficult to see from this why the class of clergy was formed in a closed form. Our clergy is not celibate, it is extremely abundant in children, who for the most part will have to seek their own food and work in the same rank; but then everyone who can is looking for places for themselves in other fields, so that we have dioceses in which up to 30 places in poor parishes are empty for years due to the lack of hunters to take them. It is obvious that this in no way depends on the constraints to which the Church is supposedly subject. The state, on the contrary, comes to significant assistance to the parish clergy, providing them with salaries to the extent possible, for which millions of sums are gradually released from the general budget of state revenues, and the appointment of pensions. Now the note proposes some kind of organization of zemstvo taxation in favor of the clergy, therefore, it is decided to propose a new taxation of the people, which is already quite burdened by the current zemstvo taxation. The note points out the “shortcomings” of spiritual harm and blames it on the unpreparedness of the clergy for moral influence on “educated society.” It would be necessary, in the author’s opinion, to change the programs and teaching subjects in it in order to give place in it to acquaintance with modern trends of social thought and “negative cultural trends.” But, not to mention the extent to which these negative trends express the true desired culture - one cannot help but notice that our spiritual educational institutions are completely under the jurisdiction of the Holy Synod and the Spiritual Educational Committee established under it, consisted of clergy and professors of theological academies, to serve for the Holy Synod as a guide for the necessary formal production and for the execution of orders of the Holy Synod, therefore, it depends on the Holy Synod to give the desired direction to education and education in a theological school and point out knowledgeable and capable leaders and teachers in the desired spirit and sense. The state, leaving complete freedom to the highest Spiritual Administration, for its part helps with the maintenance of its educational institutions with generous benefits. The note indicates that the theological school seems to be narrow-class, almost inaccessible to outside secular elements, to the significant detriment of the state. But this described class of the theological school is explained by the same reasons as the class of the clergy. Our numerous clergy, being family-based, remove from their midst numerous children, for whose support and education they have almost no means, given the paucity of support in rural parishes. In view of this, our religious educational institutions are half educational and half charitable, serving for the care and education of poor children; and all our theological schools, of which there are 185 in Russia, are maintained exclusively at the expense of the clergy, serving for this purpose, and this alone explains the almost exclusive recruitment of clergy children to them; however, not everyone who has completed the course of theological school to the end devotes themselves to serving the Church, but many go into other fields. The note also condemns the Reformer of Russia for the fact that he supposedly entrusted the clergy with a police detective work: the priest had to monitor the correct testimony of tax-paying souls. But it is necessary to remember that, when starting to establish correct order in the state, to count the population and to establish metric records, Peter had at his disposal no other instrument than the clergy, who alone were literate in writing and counting, among the ignorant rural population. And to this day, the clergy is burdened with the heavy duty of maintaining metric records, collecting various statistical information and fulfilling the requirements of various departments in the statistical, sanitary department and other subjects. Liberation from this obligation would be a blessing for the clergy, and it will undoubtedly come someday, but it does not depend on the will of the government alone. The maintenance of metric records and lists, everywhere left to a special category of officials, would require, in the event of the introduction of such an order in our country, millions of expenses, which are beyond our means, and new institutions, which are very difficult to establish everywhere on Russian territory, while the need for a note exists everywhere where there is any population, and there is no one to entrust its satisfaction to now, other than the parish clergy performing the acts of baptism, marriage and burial, with which the note is connected. As for the obligation of the clergy cited among Peter’s accusations to report on attempts on the monarch’s life and rebellion revealed in confession, this rule, which had lost its meaning long ago, should have been forgotten as one of the wild phenomena of the former wild and dark time. Apparently, the note and the absence of a living preaching word are attributed to the same constraint, but not everyone is capable of living preaching, and for the above reasons, people who are less capable and insufficiently prepared have to be chosen as members of the clergy to fill the places in the churches. But the revival of preaching depends exclusively, under local conditions, on the care and leadership of church authorities, and the existing measures of restricting the freedom of preaching by submitting written sermons to censorship depend on the church authorities and were established by it, and not by the state. Finally, the note proposes, in order for the voice of the Church to be heard in government administration, to grant the highest representatives of the church hierarchy participation with voting rights in meetings of the State Council, the Committee of Ministers and similar (?) highest state legislative institutions. But this question arose already in 1862, raised by the Minister of Internal Affairs Valuev, and was subject to discussion, during which the Moscow Metropolitan Philaret expressed a wise opinion, based on experience and knowledge of the matter, that this innovation would not serve to benefit the Church and could only harm the independence of its judgments in matters within the jurisdiction of the Church (a certificate is attached). It is true that in England, in the upper house of Lords, bishops of the Church of England participate as lords by rank, but there this is a natural thing, for the English parliament, by virtue of the royal ecclesiastical supremacy, serves as the last resort for resolving church issues, not only administrative, but also dogmatic. So, after reading the note, we remain in the same bewilderment: what are the supposed restrictions on the highest church administration and the activities of the clergy on the part of the state authorities, what is the reason for such heavy guardianship and too vigilant (?) control of the secular authorities? The note does not give a definite answer to this, content with generalities and unclear instructions and complaints. Chapter IV. Regarding the considerations of Stas Secretary K.P. Pobedonostsev on questions about desirable changes in the organization of our Orthodox Church (From the Chairman of the Committee of Ministers) In response to the note “On the current situation of the Orthodox Church,” the Chief Prokupop of the Synod presented a number of “considerations.” The thesis underlying the note, that since the time of Peter I, the Russian Church has entered a path of church governance hitherto unknown to the Orthodox Church, was nevertheless left by Secretary of State Pobedonostsev without objection. In his answer we have on this subject only the casually thrown phrase that “The Synod is a permanent council.” Not supported by any considerations, in no case can it serve as an objection to the idea, quite substantiated in the “memo,” that the Synod in its present form, in the absence of representation from local churches, is nothing more than a bureaucratic board. In his “considerations,” the Chief Prokupop wants to refute our conclusion only regarding the unfavorable impact of the reform on subsequent church life. But even if the author managed to prove the beneficialness of the reform, if every layer of his note was indisputable, then even in this case the fact of the Russian Church’s falling away from the “canon” remains a fact. The Church must be guided in its governance not by these or other human inventions, even if skillfully invented, but solely by the rules of the apostles and ecumenical councils; the covenant to be faithful to the traditions of the apostolic conciliar Church is also heard in the words of the symbol: “I believe in ... the conciliar and apostolic Church.” True, “canon” is not a dogma; it can be changed; but only by an ecumenical council, and in no case by secular authority and not even by the voice of the local church. The canonical creativity of individual local churches, such as, for example, the creativity of the Byzantine Church in the period after the ecumenical councils, cannot be confused with the ecumenical “canon”. Only consecrated by the voice of an ecumenical council can it receive the force of binding canonical law and the sanction of fidelity to church tradition. No matter how gloomy the church life of our patriarchal period was painted, it still did not provide grounds for a break with church tradition and a reorganization of church government according to Protestant models. If the patriarch, who, according to the canonical order, should only be the chairman of the council of bishops - primus inter paros (this is clearly outlined in our “memo”), somehow became a feudal lord, an autocratic sovereign in his ecclesiastical region, then he only needed to be brought into the legal “canonical” framework, limited to the council, and no more. It is strange to hear references to the fact that the conciliar principle of church government cannot be implemented in Russia due to the inconvenience of communications. Is it really possible that in the 4th–8th centuries, cluttered with the mountain ranges of Greece, Asia Minor and Syria, when the bishops of these countries were obliged to gather twice a year for local councils, communication routes were better and more convenient than on the Russian plain, and even in our age of railways and shipping? We dare to believe that the ecumenical councils, which were attended by pastors who gathered thousands of miles away and spent months on the road, knew what they were doing when they insisted on a conciliar form of government, demanding not bureaucratic boards, but representation from each church. The author of the “considerations” is ready to consider random congresses of several archpastors that were in Moscow, Kazan, Irkutsk as local councils, losing sight of the fact that at a local council there should be representatives from all dioceses of a given Church; but even if he were right, then these are only three or four random congresses in 200 years. At K.P. Pobedonostsev had at hand two documents of different origins and contents: “Question points on desirable transformations, compiled under the leadership of the Most Reverend Anthony by professors of the Theological Academy, and a “note.” The first outline a group of points for preliminary discussion at a meeting of ministers of the position of Orthodoxy and have in mind only that aspect of the issue that directly related to the guardianship of secular power over the Church; Our note gives a general picture of phenomena that are undesirable in church life, no matter what their causes may be. Despite the difference in the scope of the content of both documents, the author of the “considerations” mixed them in his objections. Looking at the “note” from a narrower angle of view of the “question points”, he believes that we blame all church disorders solely on the overly vigilant supervision of secular power, and therefore accompanies each provision of the “note” with the constant question: “What does the constraint of secular power and its overly vigilant supervision have to do with it?” Considering this question to be quite sufficient to destroy the power of our judgments, the author in his objections in most cases confines himself to it; therefore, for example, the last pages of State Secretary Pobedonostsev’s note, especially where we respond to judgments about the caste-based closed character of the clergy, about the shortcomings of the theological school, about the absence of a living preaching word, go completely past the goal: our “note” does not put these phenomena in direct connection with bureaucratic tutelage, and the “question points” do not concern them at all. Under no circumstances can we consider ourselves guilty of this misunderstanding. But even with this misunderstanding that prevented the author from grasping the internal structure of the thoughts of the “note,” we cannot share much in the nature of his objections. The author of the “considerations” refuses to go beyond the reasons, the concept of direct “constraint of the highest church administration and the activities of the clergy by state power.” He refuses to see oppression where there is no police restraint. And so, after we noted in the “note” a number of such facts of church policy as the expulsion from the higher and diocesan administration of the principle of conciliarity and local representation, the ceased convening of local councils, the communication of the dry-bureaucratic nature of the activities of the Synod and the diocesan administration, the deprivation of the church community of the right to elect bishops and presbyters, the right to dispose of church property and any initiative in parish administration, dry school direction, clergy carrying out police and detective duties; the need to live by extortion and such phenomena of state life as the excessive development of state centralization, which has killed all traces of the community and local initiative in general - all such facts, the sad, oppressive influence of which no one will dare to deny on church life, the author, without denying their existence, truly says: “The Guardian of the Church (it would be more correct to say “guardians”, for further words are taken from “questions”, and not from the “note”) in his note complains that educational and the spiritual and edifying activity of the Church is constrained, in comparison with those of other faiths, in its autonomy by the tutelage of the state; what exactly these constraints are - the “note” does not give definitive instructions (sie!), limiting itself to general phrases.” Yes, this is the essence of these constraints, that split-sectarianism is not obliged to take into account the majority of the noted sad phenomena; it stands outside this atmosphere, permeated with bureaucracy. In the “Questions about desirable transformations,” which the author considered one with the “note,” in addition, it is indicated that the parish does not have the rights of a legal entity, in connection with its intended recognition as Old Believer societies; to restrict the Church in its rights to acquire real estate (for each case, special Highest permission); to the complete elimination of the clergy from public life; the need for yearly delays even for various little things in the church economy; but the author apparently considers all this completely normal. The political mission of the clergy, with the need for various reports and registrations, also seems normal, because at the end of the note, State Secretary Pobedonostsev states that, having read everything to the end (i.e., the “note” and “questions”), “nowhere did he find any definite indications of constraint, but only phrases and vague complaints.” In response to our position that the consistory, instead of the canonical “council of presbyters” or episcopal council, represents an office where they are choking on papers, the author calmly answers: what to do if 20,000 papers a year begin to arrive? Where does this sea of ​​paper come from? The author did not think about the fact that the sea of paper began because in the “bishop’s cathedral” all parish affairs were incorrectly concentrated, due to the principles of state centralization, up to permission to repair the collapsed church fence, as a result of which the activity of the parish community froze and came to naught, a sea of paper was formed in the consistories and a paper wall in the bishop’s office, which prevents the archpastor from entering into live communication with the flock. The author of the “considerations” convinces us that the state power is not to blame for the fall of the parish: it apparently happened somehow by itself; he even indicates several partial measures of Peter I and his successors aimed at streamlining parish life. But what could partial measures, sometimes perhaps running counter to general policy, do if the entire social atmosphere was oppressive, if the developing serfdom and the persecution of community life and any local initiative completely destroyed the possibility of developing parish social life. The Chief Prosecutor’s “considerations” indicate that now, with the development of culture, the activity of the Church has not decreased compared to before, but, on the contrary, has received significant development. Of course! Of course, general cultural successes in the last two centuries should have had an impact, despite the impossible conditions of social and church life. But we must not forget that in the 17th century the clergy stood at the head of the cultural movement of the country and represented an enlightened force that had advanced far ahead, and now it is considered one of the most backward classes. Doesn't this mean that the development of church life was incomparably slower in comparison with other aspects of cultural life? At that distant time there was no mention of the discord between pastors and flocks, of that enmity between the clergy and a significant part of the intelligentsia, which is far from a good sign of the present time. The argumentation of State Secretary Pobedonostsev’s note is based on a selection of isolated cases and facts. This is apparently explained by the peculiarity of the sources on the basis of which it was written. In view of the author's reproach that our considerations suffer from little familiarity with history and are based on frivolous sources, we will dwell somewhat on this subject. To say that our note is based on such frivolous material as articles in theological journals and books by some idealists and ideologists unfamiliar with reality. But this is far from true; the canonical side of the note is based on the works of famous canonists such as: Pavlov, Suvorov, prof. Zaozersky, whose names were mentioned more than once in the note, but the author of the “considerations,” when identifying the sources we used, considered it best to keep silent about it. In matters relating to the life of the parish, we used the works of Papkov, and now State Secretary Pobedonostsev objects to the very provisions drawn from the works of Papkov, for which just two years ago the latter, according to his own proposal, K. P. Pobedonostsev, was awarded the Makaryev Prize. In view of the fact that now, in the absence of councils, church consciousness finds its true reflection only in the hotbeds of higher theological education - academies, which are the judges of even the highest hierarchs in matters of science - we preferred to base ourselves on the opinions of the academies, the expression of which is the editorial articles of academic journals. Thus, the articles of the “Church Bulletin” were more than once openly recognized in the secular press by the voice of the St. Petersburg Academy, and such interpretation of them did not arouse objections from the Synod or ecclesiastical spheres in general; that is why we used the thoughts of the editorial articles of this body. For the same reasons, we used some articles by professors Zaozersky and Tikhomirov in the Theological Bulletin: having been published in the organ of the Moscow Academy, they were met with obvious sympathy in other academic organs. It is these opinions of the academic spheres and famous canonists, and not our personal and accidentally formed views, that formed the basis of our note. If the chief prosecutor considers the opinions of theological academies frivolous, then it is permissible to ask where to turn for serious and thorough theological material? We may get an answer to this by turning to the source on the basis of which, apparently, the response “considerations” were compiled. Almost all of their factual side is similar to the dissertation of the official of the synodal chancellery Runkevich, precisely from those of its chapters and places about which there was a detailed reasoned judgment in the council of professors of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy. In view of this, we have the opportunity to evaluate the material underlying the “considerations” not on the basis of personal views, the competence of which K.P. Pobedonostsev has absolutely the right to deny, but in the words and thoughts adopted by such an institution competent in this matter as the Council of Professors of the Academy. “The canonical assessment of the Synod,” Bishop Sergius reports his opinion to the council, the rector of the academy is completely ignored by Runkevich... It is possible to think that the author does not speak about the canonical meaning and dignity of Peter’s reform because for him the Church is not a Divine institution with unshakable, inviolable foundations, but only a well-known department in the state, with which, therefore, the state may not stand on ceremony at all: at first it was headed by a patriarch and it was ruled by hierarchs, but I didn’t like it or it became inconvenient; then the patriarch was abolished and control was given to secular officials who were more “capable” and more controlled by the state. Later, Bishop Sergius somewhat softened the sentence and made the assumption that the author simply did not determine the topic of the work. The pictures of the decline of church life during the period of the patriarchate and its revival during the synodal period, with which K. P. Pobedonostsev proves the need for Peter's reform and the undesirability of a return to antiquity, are similar to the corresponding passages of the same work; but here’s what the academy’s professors say about them: “Both pictures are obviously forced and cannot lay claim to complete historical authenticity. All the examples of disorder and downright disgrace in the church life of that time (pre-reform) are of such a kind that any consistory archive on the judgment table in any era can provide the author with hundreds of them” (Bishop Sergius). The same idea is expressed by another opponent, Professor Nikolsky. Pointing out that negative facts can only gain the significance of material for general characteristics through statistics, he notes that Runkevich’s historical truth remains on the sidelines, giving way to tendentious considerations; that, using the materials of the synodal and consistory archives and tearing out individual phrases from foreign publications about Russia, using Runkevich’s method it is not difficult to imagine even the present time in a worse state. Further, Professor Nikolsky notes the historian’s poor familiarity with the pre-Petrine life of Rus' and the arbitrary characterization of pre-reform church life. “For the greatest glorification of church reform, he (Runkevich) mechanically groups everything that in one way or another denigrates the period of pre-Synodal life. Looking at Peter I through the eyes of an admirer blinded by delight, the author can only see good goals and does not want to calmly assess the actual consequences of the historical changes introduced into the church system since the beginning of the 18th century” (Nikolsky). The same view is taken in the review of Associate Professor Kartashev. “His (Runkevich’s) picture,” he says, “rests not on a serious study of the phenomena of Old Russian church life, but on a one-sided and random selection of facts, necessary for his a priori goal, snatched from the vast sea of ​​life. Without much difficulty, such a picture could be drawn not only in relation to the 17th and 18th centuries, but even in relation to the past year, if one looks at a series of slanderous cases in any consistory.” “It is difficult to imagine,” he further comments about the picture of church life presented by Runkevich, “something more inconsistent with what we know about the 17th century. We know the 17th century, on the contrary, as the century of energetic church-educational undertakings.” At the beginning of his “considerations”, State Secretary Pobedonostsev states that our wishes tend towards a significant weakening of the connection between the Church and the state, which, as a result, threatens both the Church and the state with great danger. – We would have answered such an accusation in detail if the “considerations” had noted what he actually sees as this new, “disastrous danger”; now, of necessity, we have to confine ourselves to only a brief remark. If those orders to which we propose to return - the orders of the patristic period, considered the golden age in the history of the Christian Church - were truly disastrous, then Byzantium would not have put up with them for over 1000 years, and the Church would not have flourished during this time. The author of the “considerations” wants to prove that we want a return not to the patristic time, but to the system of government of the Russian Church of the 16th and especially the 17th centuries - let’s assume this; but we must not forget that at this time our state life was formed and strengthened, living theological thought began to speak, which could not have been facilitated, especially in those difficult times, by the “disastrous” system of church government. Another objection, not related to a specific point in our note, is directed against the idea that is being imposed on us about the complete expulsion of officials from the spiritual department. The author spends an entire page proving that specialist officials will be necessary even if the patriarchate is established. On the question of means of strengthening the life of the parish, the “note” pointed out the need either to provide the clergy with a salary, or to establish such an organization of zemstvo taxation, through which the priest would receive from the parish the same funds as now, without the need to personally extort them from each parishioner in particular. Probably, having not assimilated our thoughts, the author of the “considerations” reproaches us that this will be a new burden for the already burdened people. But the “note” does not speak of a new tax, but only of a change in the form of collection from the income of those funds, which are now taken by the priest. The imposition of police detective duties on the clergy, which played such a sad role in the history of the parish, finally separating the pastor from the flock, is recognized by the author of the “considerations” as a matter of necessity, due to the lack of funds from the treasury, to establish special officials for this; and State Secretary Pobedonostsev advises forgetting the obligation to report on things discovered in confession that are harmful to the state, as an outdated rule. The advice to forget an unrepealed law is, of course, not particularly intelligible; The reference to the lack of funds from the treasury to hire separate detective agents and registrars is also unconvincing. But, as far as we know, the chief prosecutors therefore did not submit a petition to the relevant department; and then, if the lack of funds prompted the government to assign police duties to some existing official, so as not to create new ones, then, in any case, it was necessary to assign them to the local police authorities or to anyone else, but not to the shepherd. When discussing the shortcomings of the theological school, the “note” pointed out the need to familiarize future pastors with the negative phenomena of cultural life. The Chief Prosecutor apparently finds this acquaintance unnecessary, since these movements “do not express the true, desired culture.” But if this is so, then the priest needs to fight them, try to prevent their spread; We don’t understand how we can fight without thoroughly studying these negative phenomena? Wed. Tikhomirov. "Theologian. Messenger". February, page 223. 1904 "Church Bulletin". Ibid.